Saturday, February 28, 2015

Michigan St at Wisconsin - obviously this won't hurt MSU, but they're in a position where they sure can use the help
Oregon at Stanford - a deluxe bubble game
Purdue at Ohio St - another deluxe bubble game. And OSU might need it more

Among those who need to hold: SMU at UConn and Providence vs. Marquette, for seeding purposes. Pitt's at Wake, UCLA hosts Washington St

Big 12:
@Oklahoma 67, TCU 60
@Kansas St 70, Iowa St 69 - K-State's on the bubble, I guess. I mean...what would YOU do with them? There's too many signature wins to ignore. I have no idea what to do with them...or Iowa St for that matter, who will bleed a seed line, and maybe more, with this
@Baylor 78, West Virginia 66
@Texas Tech 63, Oklahoma St 62 - OSU, you're still a lock, but I'd prefer you make my life easier
@Kansas 69, Texas 64

ACC:
Louisville 81, @Florida St 59
@Boston College 79, NC State 63 - what?!?!?!?! Well I guess they're picking the right games to win, but this is an absolutely horrific loss
@Clemson 70, Georgia Tech 63 (OT)
North Carolina 73, @Miami 64 - this won't hurt Miami, but they're in the position where they need to help themselves
@Virginia 69, Virginia Tech 57
@Duke 73, Syracuse 54

Small conferences:
- Stephen F Austin 102, @Houston Baptist 87. And perhaps just as big, Sam Houston St finally messed up and lost on the road at TAMU-CC...SFA's finally got solo possession of the Southland lead
- MAC: Central Michigan loses, so we're back to a 3-way CMU/BGU/Toledo tie. 2 to play
- Bucknell wins, clinches the Patriot League
- North Florida wins and is your A-Sun champ (FGCU loses again anyways)
- Texas Southern beats Alabama St to get control of the SWAC
- Green Bay wins over Oakland, which is important because they won't have an auto-bid to the NIT
- UC-Irvine loses, and UC-Davis leads by 2 with 2 to play in the Big West
- It was the final day in CAA play, and things got sideways. UNC-Wilmington and William & Mary tied for the lead...and both lost. Northeastern and James Madison were one back...and both won. The result? 4-way tie! Bill & Mary get the 1 seed and the NIT bid.
- Harvard and Yale win again in the Ivy
- Big Sky: Montana beats EWU on the road; Sac State back in the lead there, but it's a 3-team race
- Final day in the greatest conference race ever, the Big South. Charleston Southern beats High Point in 3OT..both finish 13-5 at the top, CSU gets the tiebreaker and NIT bid. 3 teams finish 12-6, one back
- CUSA: Old Dominion 70, @North Texas 57 in bubble news. In conference race news, LaTech wins again, and just about has the hammer on this conference race
- SoCon: Wofford wins again
- The Sun Belt is eventful again - your co-leaders Louisiana-Monroe and Georgia Southern lost, and that means Georgia St pulled even with both.
- Conference undefeateds Murray St and NCCU win
- South Dakota St lost to end up sharing the Summit title with NDSU. SDSU has the 1 seed though

This is part 1 of a 33-part series in this blog, designed to give you all the information you need to know about every conference's tournament, and the postseason prospects of every single team in the conference.

The stakes:
Not a lot, frankly. Well, some for UNI and Wichita, who are playing for seeding. Right now, they could go anywhere from 4 to 7 based on your resume preferences. Absorbing a loss before the title game would probably be worth two seeding lines. If they meet in the finals, assume the winner will get a higher seed, and pencil them into the 4-7 range.

Everyone else is beyond reach of the NIT. Your 3 seed, Indiana St, is under .500 against D-1 teams, at 14-15. They need to reach the finals just to be NIT-eligible, and even then, they are way too far off the pace. So is Illinois St, with the caveat that an upset win over Wichita might blip the NIT's radar. The problem is such a win would only be their second top 100 win.

So pencil Illinois St, Evansville in for a CBI/CIT, if they want to play. Indiana St would likely have the same option, although the CIT requires a .500 record. Loyola is over .500 for the season, and should probably receive an invite as well. The bottom 4 have been truly well and awful this year.

Friday, February 27, 2015

Georgetown at St John's - G'town is playing for seeding, St John's isn't safe yet
Northern Iowa at Wichita St - this will help sort out the 4 line
North Carolina at Miami - signature win chance for a team in a conference that is bleeding signature wins right now to bubble teams
Villanova at Xavier - while X isn't safe, this is still a house money chance for them
Dayton at VCU - chance for Dayton to visit the lockbox, VCU is down to a 7 seed and could easily lose more seeding lines
Ole Miss at LSU - Ole Miss is still probably okay with a loss, but it removes most of their remaining margin of error. Big game for LSU itself, of course
West Virginia at Baylor - typical Big 12 game
Arkansas at Kentucky - big implications for Arkansas' seed
High Point at Charleston Southern - HPU wins the Big South with a win, a loss brings all sorts of ties into play, including CSU
Texas at Kansas - it's almost not fair to call this mandatory for Texas, but it kinda is
Montana at Eastern Washington - both are part of a 4-way logjam at the top of the Big Sky
Texas Southern at Alabama St - for the SWAC lead with 2 to play
George Washington at Davidson - probably too late for GWU, now's the time for Davidson though
Tulsa at Memphis - not a trivial game for Tulsa
Boise St at San Diego St - all the wins to stay on the bubble, it's all building towards this moment for Boise
Arizona at Utah - Utah can almost lock itself on the 3 line with a win (I think the 2 line might be beyond them). For 'Zona, it's their last best chance at a signature win to state their 1 seed case, because it seems like they're a half-step behind the Nova/Wisky/Gonzaga tier right now
BYU at Gonzaga - it's the season for BYU

On top of this, several conferences end season play. And a myriad of other bubble teams in must-hold situation. TOO MANY GAMES

- Valparaiso 56, @Cleveland St 53 - Valpo wins the Horizon
- Iona wins yet again and seems very solid to make the 12 line
- Harvard loses on the road at Cornell, and Yale beating Princeton means Harvard and Yale are square on 9-2. 3 to play

Game of the year in the Horizon: 12-3 Valparaiso at 11-4 Cleveland St. Finale. A Valpo win clinches the Horizon. A Cleveland St win ties the two at 12-4...and then Oakland plays at Green Bay on Saturday, both of those teams are 11-4. So we would have a 3-way tie atop the Horizon. As best I can tell, Cleveland St would win a 3-way CSU/Valpo/GB tiebreaker for the 1 seed, and if Oakland won, as best as I can tell, the tiebreaker would go so deep between Oakland and Cleveland St that it would depend on the finish of the bottom 3 teams in the conference.

Miscellany:
- In the SoCon, Wofford and Chattanooga wins, Wofford is 1 up with 1 to play
- Big doings in the Big South. High Point wins on the road to go to 13-4. And literally all the other contenders lost. Charleston Southern down on the road, they're on 12-5. Coastal Carolina loses on the road, they're on 12-6. Winthrop and Radford both could've backdoored back into the race, and both lost.
- High Point at Charleston Southern, 13-4 at 12-5. Last game for both, conference will be decided here
- CAA: Northeastern lost a bad one on the road to Elon. CAA race, with one to play, has W&M and UNCW tied at 12-5
- Sun Belt: Georgia Southern and UL-Monroe win, so joint 13-4 for them, 3 to play. Georgia St lost to go one back
- North Dakota St lost in the Summit, so South Dakota St leads by a half-game
- @Louisiana Tech 77, UTEP 60. LaTech on 13-3, UTEP and UAB at 11-4, 1.5 back. It's getting late on that race
- Murray St won again, 15-0 OVC
- Green Bay wins, so that Horizon race is even more complicated
- Big Sky, new standings: EWU and Sac St on 12-3, Montana on 12-4, UNA on 11-4. Still a week and a half left in this race
- UC-Davis loses in the Big West, their lead down to 1 over Irvine. 3 to play
- Vanderbilt 73, @Tennessee 65

There are quite a few must-hold situations out there on the bubble today. No one really has a signature win chance, though.

Houston at Temple
Minnesota at Michigan St
Nebraska at Ohio St
Rutgers at Purdue
BYU at Portland
St Mary's at San Francisco
Oregon St at Stanford

Let's see who messes this up.

- Lots of Big South games; we'll deal with those standings tomorrow
- UTEP at Louisiana Tech in CUSA should go a long way towards deciding the race. Old Dominion has a must-hold situation at Rice
- It's getting late in several conference races. Key games in the Sun Belt, Big Sky, Summit

Signature wins:
Davidson 60, @Rhode Island 59 - it's not a fancy win, but it's a road win over a bubble team, and Davidson is now your prime candidate for a 3rd NCAA team
Baylor 79, @Iowa St 70 - the race on the 3 and 4 lines is very tight, and ISU has lost pole position in that race. Baylor...right on the 3/4 edge
@Iowa 68, Illinois 60 - maybe stretching the definition of a signature win, but this should come close to keeping Iowa in the field for good. They're staying a half-step ahead of Purdue and UI right now, and that's enough
Georgia 76, @Ole Miss 72 - Ole Miss has been so hot I don't think this hurts (the next loss would, though). Georgia gets a signature road win

Catastrophic losses:
@Richmond 67, VCU 63 (2OT) - VCU could do some real serious seed damage
@Northwestern 72, Indiana 65 - IU is still probably a loss away from any real bubble danger, but this was a poor spot to have to use your mulligan
St Joseph's 82, @UMass 71 - whatever faint hopes UMass had have left the building with this catastrophic home loss
Fresno St 64, @Wyoming 59 - for everyone who still had Wyoming in play, stop it

Holding serve on the top line:
Kentucky 74, @Mississippi St 56
Virginia 70, @Wake Forest 34 - it'll take multiple losses to budge either of these teams off their position
Duke 91, @Virginia Tech 86 (OT)

Miscellany:
- The Patriot title is still in play. Bucknell loses on the road at Lehigh, and Colgate is one back with one to play, with tiebreaker in hand
- North Florida beats FGCU on the road. They're tied with 1 to play, but UNF has tiebreaker in hand
- Albany salts away the A-East race
- Valpo, with a chance to clinch the Horizon, loses on the road at Detroit. Valpo at Cleveland St this weekend. Cleveland St is one back. 12-3 at 11-4. What makes this even more complicated is Oakland is also on 11-4 and Green Bay is 10-4. Things could get very weird with tiebreakers here
- In the Colonial, UNC-Wilmington beats James Madison, and William & Mary wins. Currently: W&M 12-5, UNCW 12-5, Northeastern 11-5, JMU 11-6. Still a lot of possibilities here
- Toledo with a terrible loss at home to Northern Illinois. 3 to play for everyone in the MAC, and after Akon, Buffalo, BGU, Kent St, and Toledo...it's now Central Michigan's turn to represent the MAC in all your brackets
- By law, I include every score from every power conference. So Washington St 70, @USC 66. There you go.

North Florida at FGCU - a FGCU win clinches the A-Sun; a UNF win ties the race with 1 to go, and UNF would have the tiebreaker in hand and a home game against terrible Stetson. So this is the de-facto conference championship
Davidson at Rhode Island - two bubble teams on the fringes. The winner gets a solid resume boost, the loser might be too far gone in the bubble race. Game of the day
James Madison at UNC-Wilmington - two of the four teams tied for the CAA lead
Baylor at Iowa St - massive seeding implications
Illinois at Iowa - massive bubble implications
Georgia at Ole Miss - Ole Miss is safer, and Georgia needs this more. They desperately need something resembling a signature win

Signature wins:
@Maryland 59, Wisconsin 53 - Maryland up to the 3 line, Wisconsin down to the 2 line for me. This is the impact win Maryland needed to hang onto their top 4 seed
@Villanova 89, Providence 61 - it's more the margin of victory that's important, because Nova smashing their opponents will get them by Gonzaga in the S-Curve eventually
North Carolina St 58, @North Carolina 46 - signature road win! They've now taken road games off of Louisville and UNC, and are all of a sudden cooking with gas here. All they need to do is beat BC on the road, split with @Clemson and Syracuse, and they might be all set

Catastrophic losses:
@West Virginia 71, Texas 64 - this doesn't hurt in the micro view, but in the macro, it's yet another loss. Gotta beat someone
Syracuse 65, @Notre Dame 60 - these are the losses that make people pay more attention to your non-con SoS

Miscellany:
- In the MAC, Kent lost and CMU won. Central Michigan, with Toledo not playing yesterday, has temporary full possession of the MAC lead
- NIT watch: @Alabama 59, South Carolina 51; @Utah St 83, UNLV 65; and @Missouri 64, Florida 52 as UF is now too far gone for even the NIT
- Creighton 75, @DePaul 62. It took all season, but DePaul is finally acting like DePaul

I want to
point your attention to the avg W/L. As
a reminder, that is the average RPI of the teams Kansas has won and lost
against. The average RPI win is 77. Everyone else is above 100. That is insane. Kansas’ raw SoS is around .6700. The #2 SoS is somewhere around .6200. Those are two insane numbers keeping Kansas
in the 1 line conversation for now.
However, 8-5 road/neutral might be the counterweight.

They’ve done
enough to enter the lockbox, with an insane 10 Top 50 wins, including 5 of
those being road/neutral. They’ve done
enough to erase their missteps; now the challenge is seeding. It’s very tight between several teams in this
conference, and the conference tourney may be very useful here. They have just enough questionable losses to
keep them from safely being Big 12 #3.
Games with Kansas and Iowa St do remain, though.

It’s a
pretty bland profile for a Top 15 RPI team, frankly. They only have two R/N wins inside the top
100 (Memphis is the second). They’ll
make the tournament, but they lack the impact wins. 5 Top 50 is great, but compare them to
everyone else in the conference, and realize it’s lacking a bit. Of course, there’s still time to fix it.

A profile
that is good enough to be a lock at this stage, but man, it’s really tough to
argue a high, high seed. The bad loss
avoidance is good, though. Their non-con
SoS is uncomfortably low. And once
again, they still have impact games left so we’ll see.

Not quite
locked because they still have two chances at ugly losses with just 3 games
left in their regular season. They’re
almost out of impact chances (@WVU) to help their seed, so there’s still a bit
of consternation on my end here.

Here’s the
deal: when you play eleventy billion
games against the top teams…you have to win every once in a while. Of course, Cal and @UConn were supposed to be
quality wins, but both fell back. And in
conference, WVU at home is the only time they’ve taken a game off the top 6
teams. Probably definitely need a
second. Another chance at WVU and Baylor
are the ones to watch, assuming Kansas takes care of them.

They have an
important pair of trump cards if they need it for seeding purposes. They also have a big stable of quality wins
to lean on. I have to imagine, at this
stage, they control their own 1 seed destiny.
I can’t see Gonzaga or Villanova leaping them down the stretch; it’ll
take a Duke mistake to let them in.

Many teams
with that non-con SoS get punished hard.
Here’s why I think UND might avoid that:
when they played the tough teams, they split (split with Duke, beat UNC,
lost to Virginia). They did beat MSU and
Purdue in the non-con, and were buried by 5 sub-300 teams in the non-con. They don’t have the volume of wins you’d
like, which makes seeding them very tricky.
On the one hand, if they keep winning, I bet the committee will overlook
the SoS. On the other hand, there’s a
bunch of good teams with much better SoS numbers surrounding them in the
S-Curve. I’m not confident saying
they’re a 3 seed right now, but I can’t budge them off of it at the moment.

They’re a
lock, but they’ve lost the chance at a protected seed, it seems. 1-6 vs. teams I project to be top 6 seeds in
March is too poor. Losing to Pitt and
Iowa isn’t awful…unless your second best win is Ohio St. Are they anything more than the good bad team
that just beats the teams they’re supposed to and no one else? I’m not sure.

In the end,
having two signature wins is a big differentiator on the bubble. However, the profile is barren behind it, and
3 of the final 4 games are cupcake-ish.
Oh man, that home game against Miami will be everything for Pitt.

Too many
losses. @Purdue, @Miami, Wofford,
Cincy…no single loss there is awful, but it’s the collection that hurts, and
keeps them very much in danger. 2 great
signature wins are helping, along with that SoS, but everything else in this
profile screams at them being right on the cutline. One nasty game at UNC awaits, but 3 must-wins
lurk behind it.

Too many bad
losses and not enough depth in the quality win profile. These two things along with the non-con SoS
tell me they’re out as of today. With
UNC and @Pitt left, they’ve got to get at least 1 of those to help rectify the
profile problems – losing both might leave too big a hole.

If you’re
curious, Syracuse would probably barely be on the tail end of this bubble,
clearly behind the other 3 bubble teams.

Big 10

The loss to
Duke could hurt in a head-to-head seeding battle. They definitely would wish the Big 10
would’ve given them more signature win chances, because it is hurting their
chances right now for the 1 line.
Maryland is coming, though.

This might
be an aggressive lock, but I can’t see Indiana screwing this up. 3 good, solid wins anchor the profile. Sure, splitting with OSU and getting swept by
Purdue hurts. But that’ll impact seeding
at this point. There’s too much profile
foundation already built to prevent this house from falling apart.

Hrm. Poor road/neutral, and their best such win is
Minnesota. Not encouraging, and throwing
in the non-con SoS, this is a troubling profile. Getting swept by Iowa, splitting with
Indiana…have they done enough against the midsection of the conference? Not yet, and they have 3 mostly useless games
and Wisconsin to close. Yikes. Must hold serve at all costs until the Wisky
game.

Two
signature wins are standing out from the rest of the profile. Every other vital signs screams bubble to me,
but with two big wins in tow, it’s tough to find a fatal flaw. Of course, there’s plenty of flaws still to
be found, with marginal losses, average SoS numbers, and average everything
else. It’s probably more about bad loss
avoidance for this profile at this stage.

Well,
another typical bubble profile. Just
enough good wins to convince everyone you’re good enough, and just enough
marginal road losses to knock you out of the tournament. This profile seems pre-destined to be one of
the last ones in or out. Every single
vital sign is marginal. With @Iowa and
@Purdue still in their schedule, odds are they gotta get one.

Good lord,
those losses. And the wins are okay but
not inspiring. But they’re hot, and it’s
the one trait that has them firmly on the bubble. The non-con SoS is a red flag if they try to
cut it close to the cutline. The
good/bad news? They close with @OSU,
@MSU, Illinois. They’ll sink or swim
right then and there. We’ll know which
way the profile falls, soon.

Pac-12

Those 3
marginal road losses will cost them the 1 line, almost assuredly at this
point. The other contenders are breaking
away from them. They’ll be fine on the 2
line, but if Gonzaga is also a 2 seed, they may be shipped out east. The fun part?
If they let Gonzaga beat them, Gonzaga would be on the 1 line and
Arizona could be the #2 out west. So
beating Gonzaga didn’t help their seed AND caused them to travel across the
country. Hah.

All 5 losses
are roadies, and the best road win they have is @BYU. Not the most overwhelming resume for a
possible 3 seed, but it’ll have to do.
Losing to Kansas and Zona and SDSU on the road is fine; they probably
needed to split those other 2 to feel good about the 3 line. But this is first world problems for Utah.

One truly
signature win, a couple decent ones, and enough marginal losses to leave them
in big trouble. Their road game at
Stanford might be everything. I couldn’t
get excited about this profile, at all, a couple weeks ago. Just getting the Utah win gets them into the
workable phase of the bubble.

One good
win, and a whole lotta nothing elsewhere in the profile. They have 6 wins in between RPI 82 and
98. So the depth that seems to be there
in the quality win pile actually isn’t.
Uh oh. The good news is they can
win at Arizona to fix everything. The
bad news is, they’re Arizona. Getting
swept by UCLA is also problematic.

Reminder: 6 of the 12 losses are inside the RPI top 16,
and they did beat Utah. So even if you
write those 6 losses off, you still have 6 road losses from RPI 44 to 126, with
one road win at Stanford mixed in. No
depth whatsoever in this profile. And
they’re done with road games and have 3 relative cupcakes left. MUST.
HOLD.

A couple
marginal road losses aside, they’ve done enough. Getting a high seed may be a trickier trick
to pull off, though. The SEC is better,
but with many bubble teams, wins over the likes of Georgia and Ole Miss are
good but not great. Still, they have a
good SoS and generally solid vital signs.
They’ll be fine.

Man, there’s
some stinkers of some losses there. The
good news is they’ve won enough against the legit teams on the schedule to be
in workable bubble shape. @Arkansas is a
good trump card if they need it. 10 R/N
wins, which include the 3 above, are mega-huge right now. They’ve got bubble games to navigate against
Georgia and LSU, and if they get by them…

According to
my count, they are 2-4 against bubble-or-better teams, 0-4 against the toughest
4 of those games. Not good. The schedule had a bunch of misses – Seton
Hall, K-State, Colorado were all victories that have now melted in their
hands. They do have 10 wins in between
RPI 71 and 126, which does have more value than you think. If we don’t count Kentucky, their one impact
game left is at Ole Miss. There’s your
chance, Georgia.

3 losses
outside the top 125 are just killer, because most of the vital signs, while not
great, are workable. They have enough
wins (just) to lean on if they are right on the cutline, but those losses (and
getting swept by A&M) are killer.
This is a bubble profile that will go down to the wire.

You need a
win over a tourney team to make it eventually.
Only one chance left, at Arkansas, then you have 3 mines to dodge. Outlook is pretty cloudy here. How did they get the shiny SEC record
though? They avoided the catastrophic
losses the 3 teams above took.

Man, Brown
at home! But 5 top 30 wins, all over
probable tourney teams, and I think they’ve just done enough to lock in
now. I don’t like getting swept by St
John’s, and seeding can still be quite variable, but the vital signs are too
strong at this point to not lock in.

Only one
loss that’s even remotely bad. The
sweeps of St John’s and Seton Hall seemed better at the time. They still host Georgetown and go to Provi,
so some of the vital signs can be touched up.
If they lose a bunch? I think the
SoS would just save them at this point, along with a couple trump cards on a
neutral court. Seeding can still be
variable, though.

All 8 losses
inside the top 30. No bad losses in this
environment means just about a lock right now.
Sure, they could’ve won more, avoid getting swept by Xavier and Provi,
etc etc. And they lost 6 of their 7 toughest R/N games. Wait, am I talking myself out of this lock?

They
finished 4-2 against the 3 teams right ahead of them in this post. That’s good, because 4 sub-100 losses keep
them from being a lock right now and they need profile help. One hidden key: did beat SFA, Murray, and FGCU, 3 probable
conference champions. Two roadies at St
John’s and Creighton…boy I’d feel a lot better with both, not just 1 of 2 there,
X.

Eh. They’re probably in right now; they could
fall out; they have all the typical deficiencies and advantages of a bubble
team. There’s no new ground to tread in
this resume. We will wait and see. They host X and G’town coming up, so a split
seems inevitable and likely.

AAC

An
aggressive lock on my end, but I can’t see them falling all the way back at
this point. Non-con SoS inside the top
15 is the magic elixir. Seeding might be
an issue if they lose a couple, and I think I’m hanging them back to the 6 line
now, but still. Lock.

How long can
they make the Kansas win hold up?
Getting swept by Tulsa and SMU…they really needed one of those 4. Right now, they’re kind of stuck without the
profile depth they need to be comfortable on the bubble. This is a profile that will likely come down
to the wire, but they gotta get through the regular season without losing again
first.

As always,
when you have both good wins and bad losses, the level of your good wins
determines how safe you are. SMU 2x and
SDSU are pretty good, relative to the rest of the field. There’s plenty of worry left on the board,
but probably safe for the time being.
@Tulsa late is the swing game for them between safety and harm.

Can they
really survive Southeastern Oklahoma State?
They still have @Memphis, Cincy, @SMU. This bubble profile is really just beginning
to develop and will reshape radically around those 3 games. Hold your thoughts on them for a couple of
weeks.

They wobbled
a bit, but straightened things out well enough.
Should be safe, in large part due to that shiny 1 next to non-con
SoS. That’s the magic bullet. The committee will eat that up. Now, seeding is another issue, and 4 losses
to non-tourney teams will be a problem to be dealt with at the appropriate
time.

All losses
are road/neutral, and the next pure road win is St Bonaventure. Therein lies your resume weakness. They’ve got one game at VCU that won’t hurt
them, so holding in the other 3 remaining games might be enough at this
point. A pair of decent trump cards over
the SEC might be useful.

WCC

Go look at
the non-con SoS, then tell me there’s a problem. Go ahead.
I dare you. The simple fact is
this: they have no more access to
signature wins. A lot of other teams
do. Their chances at a 1 seed have
almost nothing to do with them. We
simply have to play it by ear and see how the other teams do.

The
road/neutral thing is a serious issue.
They best road win is Utah St.
That’s it. They lost 5 R/N games
tougher than that. The signature win is
not very signature. They lost at St
Mary’s, to Purdue on a neutral, and 3 tougher ones. They just need a bigger impact win than what
they’ve got. Fortunately for them, they
still have a Gonzaga regular season game in the hopper.

This is a
charity listing. They went 1-3 against
Gonzaga/BYU, which isn’t terrible. But
by losing @St John’s and Boise in the non-con, they have nothing left but
Northeastern and NMSU buffering that end of the profile. And that’s just not enough. They did do a reasonably good job of building
a good non-con SoS but just couldn’t get impact wins with it (and had the one
marginal loss to NAU).

An
aggressive lock, but I’ll be shocked if they lose enough to bring the bubble
into play. A couple marginal road
losses, kinda offset by neutral wins over Pitt and BYU and on the road at
Wyoming (again, kinda). Flaws are
visible, but a signature win over Utah saves the profile a bit. They’re not going to get the seed they’re
hoping for, though. 6 or 7?

Good R/N
record, just on good win, no horrible losses.
Adds up to a bubble team to me.
The margin of error is low, but I think this type of profile will get
rewarded by the committee in the end.
They haven’t given a slam-dunk reason to be left out yet, which is
vital. They do need to hold serve for a
couple more weeks, though.

One
mega-ginormous signature win chance is still on the table @SDSU. Without it, they’re right around the
bubble. Compared to CSU, they have one
or two more bad losses, a worse non-con SoS by a modest margin, and slightly
worse vital signs across the board. Not
the greatest position. They do have the
one semi-decent road win to lean on, I guess.

MVC

Their seed
feels very variable. More because of the
teams around them. They can still add
another signature win or two, but it feels like teams ranked around them will
have the chance to win their way past UNI on the S-Curve. A probable protected seed seems likely,
still, but they’re pretty tough to pin down right now.

So the
non-con schedule had Tulsa, Seton Hall, Alabama, Memphis, New Mexico St, and
the Diamond Head tourney with Colorado and Nebraska. The schedule then promptly turned around and
took a dump all over Wichita’s resume.
This seed will be all about the eye test.

CUSA

Losing road
record. Best road win is…Charlotte. 5 road losses against teams better than
Charlotte. It’s a pretty simple bubble
case to diagnose. It’s a shame because
they were going so well for so long. I
won’t kill them off just yet because they beat LaTech, but they need help
elsewhere to make it all the way back to the cutline.

Best teams
not to get a bubble look:

UMass –
despite a top 40 RPI, too many body blows (11 losses) to be taken seriously

Buffalo –
somehow has a top 50 RPI despite being 2 back in the MAC East race

Iona – top
50 RPI, has occasionally snuck into the bubble picture in the past, but the
MAAC is too weak this year to support a bid

Wofford –
gave them a chance, absorbed too many bad losses, which is a shame

Harvard – 2
sub-200 losses. Can’t do it

UTEP, Green
Bay, Valparaiso, George Washington, Louisiana Tech, Memphis, UConn, Wyoming,
Clemson, Murray St, Stephen F Austin, Seton Hall could all probably make an
argument for being on the board in some form, but I can’t find a convincing
reason to do it.